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Asking the Right Question
By bk | December 31, 2007 0:53
I just watched a video Hemant of Friendly Atheist put up. Well worth the watch, basically a Dateline like look of ‘OMG there are atheists in the universities and bookshelves.’
One of the things that stood out to me was the suggestion that none of these authors, such as Harris, Dawkins, Dennet or Hitchens would survive a book signing in a Muslim country. It may be true that Islamic countries are more overtly coercive, but that has nothing to do with the objective reality these authors are talking about. The argument presented in the video that Christianity is what actually allows these views to be presented, and our beloved authors should be thankful for that is just plain silly, for so many reasons I think I need a whole separate post for it.
So, on to the title of this post - I think we need to change the question from ‘Is there or is there not a god’ to ‘Why is it your version of the truth is more correct than all these others.’ Inevitably, the response turns in to a circular reasoning based on ‘It is correct because this book is true’ and ‘This book is true because the book says it is.’ Yet, in my talks with theists, particularly with younger ones, this question tends to cause great discomfort, and pointing out the logical fallacy of self-referencing proclamations of truth leads to some thoughtful discourse.
In my experience, once someone grapples with the question of ‘why my religion versus all the others’ they usually admit it comes down to faith, but at least there was some thought behind it. This is the first question we need to be asking, and one that theists can hardly argue with - it always come back to an admission of faith, an irrational statement. And admitting irrationality blunts all the arguments the theists lay on us.
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The xians in the video presumably base their world view on one book, the bible. Yet one of them suggests reading “responsible” xian writers. Why? Can’t everyone read the bible and make their own independent conclusions? I thought everything you needed to know was already there.
Why would anyone think that intermediaries like priests and theologians are necessary for understanding supposedly god’s word? Why would anyone think that these intermediaries understand what is written in the bible better than they do?
I you accept what they say about the bible, then you must think that they had a personal message from god or jeebus giving them a revelation.
Posted by: bernarda on January 2nd, 2008 at 2:48